So this is the talk that I gave today – thanks to everyone who attended – I hope you enjoyed it!

For anyone who wasn’t there, here’s the blurb for this talk:

IELTS and TOEFL are widely used as equivalent determinants of English language ability by higher education institutions. This talk reviews equivalency research and draws on a contrastive analysis of the two exams to suggest that the disparities between them mean we should avoid viewing them through the same lens, and questions using them for the same purpose.

And here are the slides from my presentation. They should be available to download via slideshare if you can’t see them clearly: some of the slides have quite a lot of data on them. And I’ve just noticed that slideshare clearly doesn’t support the font I used and has replaced it with something quite different…

And here, in the second slideshare box below, is a pdf copy of my slide notes / a transcript of pretty much what I said, though it might not be exactly the same, the main substance should be there!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about this talk, feel free to contact me or leave a comment below!

I went to a presentation (by Josephine O’Brien) at TESOL Arabia recently, where she mentioned the way that some students in the Gulf take IELTS frequently. In some cases, a student will take it one month and get a 5.5; the next month it will be 4.5; another month it will be 6.0. This is, of course, anecdotal, but it would be fascinating to know the real statistics … and therefore to have a better idea of the real reliability of this test … and others, for that matter. There is, certainly, a commonly-held view for both these tests that a decent teacher who ‘knows the tricks’ can up your score significantly. And, of course, the publishers claim that you can also up your score by choosing their book rather than another. So, just how reliable are any of these high-stakes tests?

Reblogged this on Stop Complaining – Enjoy Teaching! and commented:
A number of our secondary school students who wish to study in an English-speaking country will ask “Which is better: IELTS or the TOEFL?” David Petrie gave a presentation on this just yesterday at the IATEFL Harrogate conference. He’s posted his slides and even the text of his talk. Most helpful😀